Fedora2 -> Fedora3

[Marcus Brubaker]

Alan Cohen wrote:

>By comparison to others on this list, I'm still a newbie. I've been
>happily using Fedora2 and have regularly kept it current with yum.
>
>I didn't realize that each Fedora release has a very limited life time.
>I'm not interested in bleeding edge. Frankly, I'm principally concerned
>with security fixes.
>  - how will I know when it's time to upgrade from Fedora2 to Fedora3?
>  - how do I do that?
>
>My regular "yum update" has been relatively benign, but I presume that
>upgrading to a new release is not to be taken lightly! Advice?
>
>  
>
If you're not using any non-standard repositories (or packages) then 
upgrading shouldn't be much of an issue.  Even if you are using 
non-standard repositories or packages things should still be alright.  
It worked fine for me and I've been guilty of "mixing" allegedly 
incompatible repositories.  If you're not interested in the bleeding 
edge but want to stay up to date on security then I would suggest 
upgrading only when your version is no longer actively supported.

Officially, when Fedora stops supporting a release then Fedora Legacy 
starts supporting it but I wouldn't rely on their support for long as 
they are a relatively small group with a big mandate.  So putting those 
two things together I would suggest upgrading to the latest version once 
your current version is transfered to Fedora Legacy.

Now, FC2 is scheduled to be transfered to Fedora Legacy on March 21st 
when FC4 Test 2 is released.  Thus, I would wait until around May (about 
a month after FC4 has been released) to upgrade straight to FC4.  This 
ensures that you don't have to rely on Fedora Legacy to provide security 
patches for too long but that you don't jump into FC4 until the dust has 
settled.

As to how to upgrade, just download the ISOs, burn them and boot as if 
doing a new install.  It should detect the old installation and give you 
the option to upgrade.  (In theory you could upgrade with yum like 
Debian users do with apt but I'm not sure how much I would suggest that 
and I've never heard of anyone trying it.)

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Marcus
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